Nightmares

[Redhead Erin]

I think I have nightmares every time I go to sleep.  I think it has always been this way because I never ever remember waking up from one nice dream.  They almost always have something to do with my mother's house, or being chased, or losing someone I love. 

The way I cope with this is, I avoid sleeping. I keep myself a little bit tired all the time, so when I sleep, I sleep so deep that I dont remember what I have dreamed.  Because whenever I do remember, it sucks and I wish I hadn't.   

Does anyone else deal with this?

[Guest]

I used to Erin, a lot. Not any more, or very rarely, do I have nightmares. It's taken a long time though. I sleep better now but I do remember doing what you say - being half asleep a lot of the time. I guess it's another way of coping.

[teartracks]

Hi Erin,

Off and on over my life, I've had nightmares.  Bizarre things like open caskets with the corpse in them going up hill against the water flow of the water.  It was a stream with lots of obstacles.

Now when I have a nightmare, I do my usual review of, 'what did I eat yesterday and did I change medications i.e., did I add something new?)  I have to keep a careful watch even when I take supplements.  I suppose my system is extra sensitive to certain foods and medications.  This may not apply to you.

tt

[fraidycat]

Hey Erin,
I have had plenty of nightmares over the years. They can be scary, even jolt you out of your sleep. I think thats what makes them standout more in my memory and easier to remember in the morning than normal. Subconsciousness working its way out....

Fraidy

[Hopalong]

Dunno where my post went but Erin, I felt very said when I read this.

I'm hoping your subconscious will soon have completed what it's processing and release you to

PEACEFUL
dreams....

Hops

[Redhead Erin]

Thanks, (((guys.)))

I get so sick and tired of my life.  Nothing in it seems normal.  It's all "surface" normal, like my mom's house.  The place looks neat as a pin, but god help you if you open up a cabinet or a drawer . . . . .

The nightmares are just another aspect of this, the way I really feel about who I am.  I have a normal life on the surface, but my friends dont know what I do for a living.  People I have told, or who have found out in the past, have drifted away (their issues, not mine) and I am starting over again.  I have just left another church and don't know where to go next.  I don't have any problems with being a dancer, in fact I love it, but I also know most other people do.  I want to move on but I am trapped by my need to earn money and keep food on the table.  I like my job but I hate having to lie about it, feeling that no one will understand me, no one will believe that I am an entertainer, not a whore. No one will believe me.

This is in turn a reflection of how I really feel about myself, not just my work.  No one will love me if they really know me.  I am going through a phase right now of feeling that my husband doesn't really care about me all that much (I suspect he does but doesn't show it in ways that register with me) and of feeling that if anybody really "got" me, they would run away in horror.

[KayZee]

Hi Erin,

Just wanted to throw some hugs, support and restfulness your way. 

I don't know how much free time you're working with at the moment, but, occasionally, a big dose of exercise helps me catch some much-needed Zzzzs.  A tough yoga class would knock me out cold and keep the nightmares at bay (I'd be too pooped to dream).

I can really relate to your post about feeling "normal" on the surface, but less than so underneath.  I'm sure this is just a habit leftover from our messed-up childhoods.  Whatever teeny-tiny remnant of faux-love our NMs gave us was utterly reliant on the fact that we presented ourselves to the outside world as happy, normal, non-abused daughters.  Survival depended on secrecy, white-lies, lies of omission.  Our psyche split in two.

This sounds ridiculous, but I was watching one of RuPaul's shows on Logo the other night, and she advised a woman (this woman was worried that other people were judging her and her family unkindly because of her tattoos) to tell herself: "What other people think of me, is not my problem."  That sounds a little N, at first.  But really, she might be right.  If we're not hurting anyone else--and you're clearly not, you're a loving, responsible, funny, insightful person--just keep finding your voice and letting it be your guide. 

Sending lots of love your way, Kay

[Hopalong]

Last night was VERY strange. I felt like the winner of a Suggestibility Contest.

Erin wrote about nightmares here which I read yesterday morning.
My D came by the office on the way out of town in the afternoon and told me she'd had nightmares about people breaking in to the house... Alone at the end of the day (pitch dark, a tiny office center on a rural highway, and I'm alone there for a while end of day because of my schedule)--I saw a GHOST in my office. Completely bizarre, but this person walked past my cubicle and looked over its "wall" at me. Indistinct image, and a quick event. But unless I've begun to hallucinate, it was the most direct experience of such a thing I can recall. I have never "believed" in ghosts, but that was just...so actual. Jeez! Messes with my mind.

Then last night I also had nightmares of being broken in on, terrible sleep, half-dreams of getting up and putting a small chair under the doorknob...but I don't have that chair in my room. (I very seldom have nightmares. Many years ago, I was "empathic" to what I felt when I met Anne Sexton and experienced very intense "waking dreams" of suicide I knew were not my own, and my first incredible panic attack...talked to my old professor, then when she did it a few days later he called me in and said I'd had a premonitory experience. Whew. Maybe I'd better check the locks!) Or maybe I just picked up on my D's deep turbulence. I think that was it, really. I'm not feeling any panic-attack symptoms at all.

It was a full moon.

Who knows?

Yuck. But I'm okay. Beautiful day today.

(Sorry for the hijack, Erin.)

Hops

[Redhead Erin]

Hey no problem Hops!  I have had a bunch of crazy experiences in my life, too.

Here is a story about a haunted strip club where I worked
http://colleenoreilly.blogspot.com/2007/10/haunted-strip-clubs.html

This is about my old house:
http://sometimesitsabitch.blogspot.com/2007/10/haunted-house-where-i-used-to-live.html

And where I grew up:
http://sometimesitsabitch.blogspot.com/2007/10/haunted-house-where-i-grew-up.html


Kay, I don't think that was dumb at all!  I bet RuPaul has a Hard-Knocks PhD in shaking off what other people think.

[teartracks]

Hops,

Last night was VERY strange. I felt like the winner of a Suggestibility Contest.

Erin wrote about nightmares here which I read yesterday morning.
My D came by the office on the way out of town in the afternoon and told me she'd had nightmares about people breaking in to the house... Alone at the end of the day (pitch dark, a tiny office center on a rural highway, and I'm alone there for a while end of day because of my schedule)--I saw a GHOST in my office. Completely bizarre, but this person walked past my cubicle and looked over its "wall" at me. Indistinct image, and a quick event. But unless I've begun to hallucinate, it was the most direct experience of such a thing I can recall. I have never "believed" in ghosts, but that was just...so actual. Jeez! Messes with my mind.

Then last night I also had nightmares of being broken in on, terrible sleep, half-dreams of getting up and putting a small chair under the doorknob...but I don't have that chair in my room. (I very seldom have nightmares. Many years ago, I was "empathic" to what I felt when I met Anne Sexton and experienced very intense "waking dreams" of suicide I knew were not my own, and my first incredible panic attack...talked to my old professor, then when she did it a few days later he called me in and said I'd had a premonitory experience. Whew. Maybe I'd better check the locks!) Or maybe I just picked up on my D's deep turbulence. I think that was it, really. I'm not feeling any panic-attack symptoms at all.

It was a full moon.

Who knows?

Yuck. But I'm okay. Beautiful day today.

(Sorry for the hijack, Erin.)

Hops,

You're okay. 

tt

[sKePTiKal]

"....maybe I just picked up on my D's deep turbulence. I think that was it, really."

Yep; sounds like a message from the unconscious self, to me. Like your gentle, peaceful private life has been intruded on... so the Unc self just wants to make sure you're paying attention!    It's possible to feel OK with the current changes -- and uncomfortable, too.